Multi-tier programming on devices

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Jon Brunson - 03 Apr 2006 14:42 GMT

Howdy all,

Is it advisable to write Mobile Device applications using multi-tier
methodology? Or as Devices are much more resource-limited, would keeping
the number of tiers help reduce memory and processor usage?

I know apps on Devices can only use a maximum of 32MB of RAM, and
unfortunately our app is approaching, and at a push can be made to
breach that 32MB barrier. It's written in VB.NET, and has 4 tiers:-

1. GUI
2. Business logic
3. SqlCe interface
4. SqlServer interface

If we squished the number of layers from 4 down to 2 (GUI & "Everything
else"), would this help things memory-wise?

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<ctacke/> - 03 Apr 2006 15:53 GMT

Pushing it to a single tier would likely gain nothing in memory usage. It's
also not true that you have a 32MB hard limit. The CF does a lot of
allocation from shared space. You have a 32MB virtual space limit per
process.

-Chris

> Howdy all,
>
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
> If we squished the number of layers from 4 down to 2 (GUI & "Everything
> else"), would this help things memory-wise?

Reply to this Message

Jon Brunson - 03 Apr 2006 16:04 GMT

Surely if an app is the first (or perhaps only) .NET app on the device,
the CF would be using that app's memory space for the framework, or does
the CF somehow create it's own process along side your own to run in?

> Pushing it to a single tier would likely gain nothing in memory usage. It's
> also not true that you have a 32MB hard limit. The CF does a lot of
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
>> If we squished the number of layers from 4 down to 2 (GUI & "Everything
>> else"), would this help things memory-wise?

Reply to this Message

<ctacke/> - 03 Apr 2006 16:30 GMT

The CF runs partly in slot 0, partly in slot 1 and partly in shared memory
space. Read all 3 parts of this, along with Mike Zintel's linked blog
entry:

http://blogs.msdn.com/stevenpr/archive/2005/12/14/503818.aspx

-Chris

> Surely if an app is the first (or perhaps only) .NET app on the device,
> the CF would be using that app's memory space for the framework, or does
[quoted text clipped - 24 lines]
>>> If we squished the number of layers from 4 down to 2 (GUI & "Everything
>>> else"), would this help things memory-wise?

Reply to this Message

Jon Brunson - 03 Apr 2006 17:06 GMT

Thanks Chris

> The CF runs partly in slot 0, partly in slot 1 and partly in shared memory
> space. Read all 3 parts of this, along with Mike Zintel's linked blog
[quoted text clipped - 32 lines]
>>>> If we squished the number of layers from 4 down to 2 (GUI & "Everything
>>>> else"), would this help things memory-wise?

Reply to this Message

Multi-tier programming on devices

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